Kerala's Ancient Capital — the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Kovalam Beach, and the Southernmost Tip of the Indian Subcontinent
Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum in colonial and common use) is the capital of Kerala, India's southernmost major state, and a city whose identity is inseparable from the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple — a Dravidian masterpiece where Vishnu reclines on the serpent Ananta in a chamber that measures 61 metres end to end, and where underground vaults estimated to hold gold worth over US$20 billion have made it the richest temple in the world. The Napier Museum, built in 1880, houses one of the finest collections of Chola, Vijayanagara, and Kerala bronzes in India. Kovalam Beach, 16 km south, is a cre…
Thiruvananthapuram was the capital of the Kingdom of Travancore, which ruled southern Kerala from the 16th century to Indian independence in 1947 and was one of the most progressive princely states in colonial India — it abolished slavery (1855), opened temples to lower castes (1936), and achieved near-universal literacy before most Indian states. The Maharaja of Travancore signed the instrument of accession to India on July 30, 1949 — one of the last princely states to do so — and the Padmanabhaswamy Temple's vaults were discovered to be extraordinarily wealthy only in 2011, when a Supreme C…